Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

Biological warfare expert to stay on in his practice

‘Medicine is my life and I intend to keep practising.”

Those were the words yesterday of apartheid-era chemical and biological warfare expert Dr Wouter Basson after the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) said he would be charged for his role in the army’s weapons programme.

Saying he had registered as a doctor in 1973, Basson vowed to defend his medical practice.

Dubbed “Dr Death” by the media because of allegations that he developed chemical and biological pathogens to kill members of anti-apartheid movements, he runs a private practice as a cardiologist in Cape Town and Pretoria.

Professor Lesley London, of the Health and Human Rights Project at the University of Cape Town, and a former superintendent in the Gauteng Department of Health, Dr Ralph Mgijima, lodged separate complaints to the council about Basson’s role as the head of Project Coast.

The top-secret programme included attempts to develop bacteria capable of killing blacks or making them infertile.

Basson, a former physician of ex-president P W Botha, was acquitted in 2002 following a marathon trial in which he was accused of drug possession, drug trafficking, fraud, 229 murder and conspiracy-to-murder counts, and theft.

He refused to seek amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

He told the The Star’s sister newspaper, the Cape Times, yesterday that he had been aware of attempts to have him struck off the roll for the past four years.

“I have been informed about the complaints and will obviously defend myself. Medicine is my life and I intend to keep practising,” said Basson.

London confirmed they had tried to get the council to act against Basson’s “unethical conduct” because he was a medical doctor at the time he was involved in the warfare programme.

“The Health and Human Rights Project was born of submissions made to the TRC on the human rights violations by medical practitioners. We lodged the complaint against Dr Basson because we feel the practice should maintain the highest ethical standards,” London said.

HPCSA spokesperson Tendai Dhliwayo confirmed that London had lodged a complaint in 2001, but said the council’s hands were tied by Basson’s criminal trial.

Basson said London and Mgijima were “nice guys who are misinformed” about his role in the warfare programme. He said he still received his R50 000 monthly stipend from the SA National Defence Force, but referred questions about what his duties were to the army.

“Yes, I am still employed by the defence force and enjoying every moment of it,” he said.

He was suspended from the SANDF in 1999, and after his acquittal in 2002, he demanded his job as surgeon back.

SANDF spokesperson Sam Mkhwanazi said that the last time he had checked, Basson was still on the payroll.

Dr Marjorie Jobson, the director of the Khulumani Support Group, welcomed the attempts to have Basson struck off the roll of medical practitioners.

“That’s fantastic news. He should be struck off the roll,” said Jobson, adding that she felt aggrieved that Basson still received a salary from the SANDF. That money should be used to pay his victims.”

Khulumani was one of the organisations that expressed dismay when the National Prosecuting Authority decided not to proceed with criminal charges against Basson in 2005.

Basson is alleged to have been involved in the killing of freedom fighters in the 1980s.